This invention relates generally to printers and connected hardware used in vending machines and more specifically to promotional ticket printing, promotional databases, and promotional ticket triggering within a vending machine printing environment.
The vending machine manufacturing industry provides a variety of vending machines configured as self serve kiosks for dispensing various foods, drinks, and other material products. An exemplary vending machine is a soft drink vending machine. Vending machines are usually found in locations where people would congregate or be passing through and require snacks, food, or other goods.
Vending machine manufacturers have more recently introduced intelligent, network connected vending machines to the market and these have begun to find wide acceptance in that industry. These new vending machines are considered intelligent since they have capabilities of tracking their product sales and inventory levels, and reporting these to a central location via a hard wired land line or over a wireless communications link. This information may then be used to schedule route restocking schedules and for market analysis.
Initial testing of the network connected vending machines have been positive, and this initial success practically guarantees a wide installed base of networked vending machines with a customer audience captive during the vend process. This installed base opens up tremendous electronic promotional opportunities.